


Hearts are Made to be Broken

by hurricaneredd



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Are those still a thing these days???, Brief moments of a panic attack, I am too ancient to be hip, M/M, Mostly Zolf reflecting on things, Song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23621590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurricaneredd/pseuds/hurricaneredd
Summary: Zolf visits Wilde alone and reflects on their past.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	Hearts are Made to be Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hgb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hgb/gifts).



> Words are fucking hard, y'all.
> 
> This is partially building off of some crimes I wrote in the RSB server and greatly inspired by "Promise" by Ben Howard, which I wouldn't have known about if not for Heather. So I guess this is partially her fault, too. 
> 
> Anyway, this is rough and unedited like the rest of my works. Surprise, surprise! 
> 
> As always, the title of this little piece is a quote by Oscar Wilde.

_And meet me there_   
_Bundles of flowers_

Zolf goes to the empty grave, clutching a bouquet of wildflowers he picked himself.

They never retrieved his body. By the time they were able to return, it was too late. He’d gone, his body stolen by the ocean, swallowed by its cavernous maw. All that remained were the shackles he’d removed. No one commented when they saw Zolf pick them up, tears burning his eyes. He refused to shed them. Oscar wouldn’t have wanted that. So he takes them and shoves them a little too roughly into his pockets, not wanting to keep them in a bag. No, he wanted them on him. A physical, real reminder of the sacrifice the stupid, selfless bard.

Here he stands on the grassy Cliffs of Moher, overlooking the ocean as it raged and slammed against rock. The single gravestone stood, and he clenches the bundle of flowers even tighter, blunt nails digging into the calloused flesh of his palm. He stubbornly refuses to cry, even as the ever present ache in his chest flares, its tendrils digging even deeper to steal his breath away. No, he’s not going to spill another tear for him. It’s not what he would’ve wanted.

Gods, he misses him.

_We'll wade through the hours of cold_   
_Winter, she'll howl at the walls_   
_Tearing down doors of time_   
_Shelter as we go_

So many wintery nights. 18 months together allowed them to share so many nights together. Some nights were filled with conversations—idle chats about the way things used to be. Sometimes Wilde would tell him of the team after he’d left. He told him of the goblin paladin of Artemis who would shoot first and ask questions later. He told him of the kindness of the orc paladin of Aphrodite and how she immediately considered him a friend without really knowing a thing about him. Zolf liked those nights. The winds would howl and rattle the windows of whatever little shack they’d hole up in.

Then, some nights there’d be nothing but silence, two weary men too tired to speak but both of them understanding the other.

And then—

Well, some nights were just terrible, weren’t they? The nights filled with nightmares and panic attacks. Nothing surprised him like the first time he’d seen the bard broken down, curled in on himself as he shoved his hands into what little hair had grown back, clutching tightly as he fought for a single breath. And then another. And another. The sucking in of air shook the dwarf more than he ever thought it would, and all he could do was sit beside him, offering a solid presence as the human worked through whatever had triggered him.

No matter how awful the storm raged outside of wherever they found shelter, it couldn’t drown out the sound of labored breathing.

Those nights were the hardest to endure.

_And promise me this_   
_You'll wait for me only_   
_Scared of the lonely arms_   
_Surface, far below these burns_

They never made promises to each other. Not out loud, at least. There were no “Promise me you’ll come back to me,” no “I promise, when this is over we’ll get a little place near the ocean.” No, there were no promises shared between them.

And yet—

And yet, there were thousands of promises left unspoken.

If I can, I’ll come back to you.

I’ll be here to help you through the darkest moments.

I’ll be waiting.

They never once uttered any of these things to the other, yet they both knew that, if it was in their power, they would do just that.

When a mission was done, Zolf always returned to Wilde’s side. He could’ve gone anywhere, could’ve worked with any number of people due to his connections with the Harlequins, and yet he continued coming back to the bard, helping keep him steady and sane as things got worse and worse.

And Wilde did the same.

On the nights where grief and guilt overwhelmed Zolf, Wilde was there beside him, a steady rock to tether himself to. The nights where all Zolf could do was rage at the world, at Poseidon, at anyone and anything that allowed this to happen, Wilde was there. He never once tried to stop the dwarf.

They never promised each other anything, yet they promised so much.

_And maybe, just maybe, I'll come home_

With a surprising amount of gentleness, Zolf places the flowers in front of the gravestone.

Gusts of winds whipped against him, threatening to push him over the edge and deep into the oceans below. A brief thought flashed—maybe he’d be able to—but before he can even finish it, he shoves it aside. That’s not what Wilde would’ve wanted.

He can imagine the hard-set glare he’d fix him with, an inner fury darkening his pale blue eyes.

He never came home. He never promised to—the world was too precarious for that, and they always threw themselves headfirst into danger trying to save it—but a part of Zolf dared to hope that he would. At the end of the day, once they righted everything, the dwarf hoped they’d come home together.

Hope was a dangerous thing when the world’s falling apart, wasn’t it?

(But hope was all he had to cling to.)

_Who am I, darling, to you?_   
_Who am I_   
_To tell you stories of mine?_   
_Who am I?_

There were times when they would tell each other stories of their pasts. They happened rarely, both men finding some parts too painful to share, but when they did, the other would sit attentively. Zolf told him of life in Chislinghull and of the way Feryn took to the life of a miner better than he ever could.

Wilde, for his part, would tell him of his older brother, Willie, something that had surprised him when he first found out. He told him of how Willie was the one everyone had seen as promising, going so far as to regale Zolf with how the headmaster of their boarding school once told him that if he’d only studied as well as he had that last year then he might’ve been as accomplished as his brother. He told him of Willie’s rise and fall.

He also spoke of his mother. Zolf knew just from the tenderness of his expression and the softness of his voice that Jane Wilde meant more to the bard than he’d ever be able to admit to. It was partly due to her and her poetry and her activism that Wilde fell in love with the wonders of words, a talent he said he crafted and honed the longer he worked for the Meritocrats.

The more Wilde opened up about his mother, the more Zolf saw her in him.

_Who am I, darling, for you?_   
_Who am I?_   
_I’ll be a burden in time, lonely._   
_Who am I to you?_

There were moments of weakness between the two men. Moments where everything got to be too much. Too much noise. Too much devastation. Too much loss. _Too much_.

Wilde knew he wouldn’t ever get to live as long as Zolf. Even if they both managed to get through this, even if they came out the other side relatively unscathed, he would be a burden on the cleric.

Life was so short for humans, so fleeting. That never felt more poignant than in those stolen moments, late at night when nothing but the two of them were awake.

Zolf never once complained about the possibility, even as they sat quietly in each other’s company. He’d simply accepted it as it was. But Wilde—

Oh, there were nights when he couldn’t not think about it, as absurd as it was. The world was destroying itself, and they had so much to do, but some nights…some nights his mind wandered, and he wondered how much of a burden that’d be on his dwarf.

If, despite his never voicing those thoughts, Zolf would squeeze his hand or his shoulder a little tighter on those nights, neither of them spoke about it. No one wanted to think of burdens, after all.

_I come alone here_

He stays there a little while longer, never once uttering a single word. There’s nothing for him to say. Not anymore. He’s already raged, already shouted himself hoarse. He’s already broken down, already let the pain swallow him whole as he wept. He’s already recounted everything the team managed to accomplish, already told him of how they finally managed to right things again and how the world was slowly rebuilding itself better and stronger than before.

He’s already done so much that there’s nothing left besides silence.

He pulls out the shackles from his pocket and brushes his fingers against the ever familiar metal. He can see where its worn down the most—places he rubs at the most.

He rests his hand against the gravestone—an ever familiar gesture these days—and wonders if the others ever come to visit. He doesn’t know. He never asks and never speaks of his own visits to the empty grave. It’s best this way, he thinks.

He comes here alone, and he leaves alone, too.


End file.
